Nikki Reed’s mini-comeback

I say “mini-comeback” because I think she’s hustling pretty hard these days and it’s barely paying off.

I feel sorry for Nikki Reed, don’t you? She showed such promise at a young age, co-writing and co-starring in Thirteen, and I liked Mini’s First Time. But then she just…petered out. I think this sums it up:

Friend: “Whatever happened to Nikki Reed?”Me: “She can’t get out of her own way.”

She’s always reminded me of that Jane Austen line, Mr. Wickham has the happy manners that enable him to make friends. Whether he is equally able to keep them is less certain. At twenty-three, Reed is on her fifth or sixth reinvention. It seems like every couple years she has some dramatic “falling out” with whatever friends she has and then she comes back with a new set of friends and a new life plan. (The last one being when her play for Robert Pattinson ended with her on the outside looking in after he dropped her—cold and fast—when he finally won over Reed’s now-ex BFF Kristen Stewart. Hard truths, Twihards, but the course of love never did run smooth.) The current plan is “fiancée of an Idolator and general music person”. She’s going to write songs? She’s spending a lot of time in Nashville these days with her Idolator, so she’s talking about getting into music. Sure, okay. Give that a shot.

I saw Reed yesterday on Toronto’s Bloor Street. I barely noticed her—just a “hey wait a minute” and a quick double-check left me 99% sure it was her. She was doing that “look at me but don’t look at me” move that Kirsten Dunst has perfected but Reed was doing a pretty good job of it herself. She’s very pretty in person, with sexy showgirl legs and a nicer complexion than I expected. Maybe she’s laid off the fake tanning? She’s in Toronto for the Much Music Video Awards, at which she presented the last award of the night. Her dress was a better effort than she’s made in the past but the skirt was too full—it made her hips look wide and did not maximize her crazy amazing legs. Pencil skirts, Nikki! Try a pencil skirt!

Will this latest reinvention pay off? Doubt it. After all, she can’t get out of her own way. The train wreck is coming and I wish she and/or the Idolator were more famous so someone would be paying attention when it happens.

PS: She took her shoes off backstage and made the Idolator carry them around. Lainey thinks Reed is the “K-Fed” in this relationship but I think they’re BOTH K-Feds.